Yep, its that time of the year again! I received my secret santa gift in the mail yesterday (THANKYOU MEL?), I got this gorgeous hat and scarf set (kindly modelled by E) and some DIVINE home-made rocky road with lots of coconut and pecans in it… mmmmmmmmm. I would be asking my santa for the recipe only I just started Weight Watchers last week so I probably shouldn’t. But rocky road is mostly marshmallow right? And marshmallow isn’t many points, right?
Obviously when I wear the hat the ribbed brim isn’t quite so wide! but its really stretchy and actually fits E nicely as well as me I had hinted that I’d love a beanie to wear when feeding out to my horses every night in winter – it gets pretty darn chilly out in the cold winter evenings, and in the rain and wind. So I’m stoked with this lovely set, its very soft and warm – and of course I never get around to knitting anything just for me!!! I don’t know what the yarn is, it definately isn’t pure wool cos its really really soft and not prickly at all and I am really really fussy when it comes to scarf yarn! So is E, she is a total fussypants when it comes to scratchy yarn, but she wore this set for at least 45mins this morning quite happily and only took it off when she was hot, so it gets her vote of approval too. I haven’t yet found a 8ply yarn that I like for scarves, so I’m hoping my santa will tell me what this stuff is so that I can get some (I’m thinking it might make a nice Ocean Waves Scarf).
I particularly liked this posey pic of E doing her modelling thang:
Now I haven’t shown what I did for my secret santa gift, because I never got around to photographing it. I made 3 incredibly ugly but very functional Grandmother’s Favourite dishcloths (the yarn was ugly, not the pattern) and a Vintage Hues Calorimetry, which looked very similar to the one pictured below. Only wasn’t that one. But was the same yarn. (ha ha, doesn’t E look so young in that old pic?!)
Oh and I added some yummy-smelling hand cream and a teacup and coaster set and some herbal tea
Oh, and while I’m here, my online buddy Sheryl is doing a giveaway on her blog, which you should go and check out here (yes I’m shamelessly mentioning it here so that I can get two entries).
You may remember this yarn that I dyed ages and ages ago
Well it sat around in my cupboard for a year or so, waiting to be made into longies for Sally’s bubba before he arrived. Well, Jas arrived and still the yarn sat there, so in the end I gave it to Sally to whip up the longies – I figure that now that she is a SAHM she has a bit more time on her hands than I do! (Lucky for her, Jas is an easy baby and an excellent sleeper.) So she dutifully whipped up the longies in next to no time, and they look rad!
I LOVE how this yarn knitted up, but I think they need a wee embelishment – maybe an orca? I think they took a smidgeon over 100g so she should have lots left over. Doesn’t Jasper look cute in them?
I had heaps of the hand-dyed yarn left over after making the Meret beret, so I made E some matching fingerless gloves
I used the Small Fry Fingerless Gloves pattern (thats a Ravelry link) and modified them slightly by using 3.5mm needles instead of 4mm needles, skipped a couple of rows after the thumb (because I didn’t want them too long on her fingers) and did only 3 rows of stocking stitch on the thumbs. I’m so pleased with the end result, they fit perfectly and look cute matched with her beret.
I used my Magic Yarn Ball swap yarn at last! It seemed appropriate to make a Meret, which I believed is shortened from “Mystery Beret”, and as the goodies inside the MYB were a mystery I thought it fit nicely. Except that I cheated and rewound the MYB and got the goodies out before I started knitting *blush*.
The pattern is for 10ply and my yarn is 8ply, so I figured it would downsize nicely for E on 4mm needles. I cast on for the largest size and didn’t do any repeats. When I finished it looked TINY and I thought it would only fit a baby, I figured I’d have to just put it away in my gift stash until I found a baby girl to give it to. So I soaked it in water for a while and then blocked the snot out of it on a dinner plate. And it worked! The lace opened out nicely, and it turned into a nice big slouchy beret for E (it even fits me!)
I absolutely love the yarn, the colour variations are quite subtle but look really neat and don’t overwhelm the lace. The top pic is the most true to colour. I’ll have to take a pic of all the goodies that were inside the MYB!
My other nephew Ash, who is now 8 months old, had major heart surgery on Tuesday this week, and is recovering well at Starship Hospital We expect he will be there for another couple of weeks.
Here he is in hospital the night before his big op:
I had hinted that I’d love a beanie to wear when feeding out to my horses every night in winter – it gets pretty darn chilly out in the cold winter evenings, and in the rain and wind. So I’m stoked with this lovely set, its very soft and warm – and of course I never get around to knitting anything just for me!!! I don’t know what the yarn is, it definately isn’t pure wool cos its really really soft and not prickly at all and I am really really fussy when it comes to scarf yarn! So is E, she is a total fussypants when it comes to scratchy yarn, but she wore this set for at least 45mins this morning quite happily and only took it off when she was hot, so it gets her vote of approval too. I haven’t yet found a 8ply yarn that I like for scarves, so I’m hoping my santa will tell me what this stuff is so that I can get some (I’m thinking it might make a nice Ocean Waves Scarf).
